Dutch Climate Minister Says Talks to Quit Fossil Fuels Have Momentum
(Bloomberg) -- The 50-plus nations attending the Santa Marta, Colombia, conference on exiting fossil fuels account for about 30% of global GDP and roughly 30% of the world’s oil, gas and coal consumption, giving the event enough weight to show that a phaseout is viable, said Dutch Climate and Green Growth Minister Stientje van Veldhoven.
“If these countries significantly reduce their dependency on fossil fuels, it means that they’ll be investing in their own economy instead of importing fossil fuels from abroad,” van Veldhoven said Wednesday in an interview on the sidelines of the conference, which is being co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands. “It means that they’ll be investing in clean technologies, but it also means that they’ll be shielding their economies against the kind of price shocks that we’re seeing currently.”
The energy crisis stemming from the Iran war has prompted countries around the world to take emergency measures.
The Santa Marta meeting, which ends today, has brought together governments seeking to translate the call to leave behind fossil energy — issued at the United Nations’ COP28 summit in Dubai in 2023 — into practical policies.
“This coalition of the willing has of course brought together those countries who really feel a need to have the conversation about how to do this,” said van Veldhoven, “focusing on very concrete ideas about implementing this in their countries and learning from best practices from other countries.”
Van Veldhoven said the priority should be near-term results, and expressed a hope “that countries don’t just focus on everything that needs to be done between now and 2050, but also really focus on what we can do in the next five years. That is where it really translates into implementation.”
France unveiled a national road map away from fossil fuels on Tuesday. Other nations taking part in the conference include Germany, the UK, Italy, Brazil, Australia and Vietnam, as well as the European Union.
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